Judgment :-

Aftab Alam, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. The question that once again arises before this Court is what would be the status of a person, one of whose parents belongs to the scheduled castes/scheduled tribes and the other comes from the upper castes, or more precisely does not come from scheduled castes/scheduled tribes and what would be the entitlement of a person from such parents to the benefits of affirmative action sanctioned by the Constitution. The Gujarat High Court has proceeded on the basis that the issue is settled by the decisions of this Court in Valsamma Paul v. Cochin University and others, (1996) 3 SCC 545 followed by Punit Rai v. Dinesh Chaudhary, (2003) 8 SCC 204 and Anjan Kumar v. Union of India and others, (2006) 3 SCC 257. On the strength of those three decisions the High Court upheld the order passed by the Scrutiny Committee cancelling the tribal certificate earlier obtained by the appellant on the sole ground that his father was a non-tribal, belonging to the Hindu caste Kshatriya. The High Court did not advert to the fact that the mother of the appellant was undeniably a Nayak, one of the scheduled tribes and the appellant himself and his other sibling